Story and photos by Mark Wing

Long-time Tin Lizzies of Albuquerque member Betty Housholder has been organizing our club show at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta for many years.  This nine day annual event attracts balloonists and enthusiastic spectators from around the country and Internationally.  This year, nine Model T’s from our club participated in the event.  We are very lucky that Betty arranged that our Model T’s were able to park on a nice grass area very near the Balloon Museum.  Betty and some other club members had parked their cars in the show area the previous day so as to avoid the heavy traffic the morning of the show.  The first Tin Lizzie members on this Sunday began arriving before 5am.

Showing his car for the first time at the Fiesta was Larry Young, a member of our club who divides his time between Tulsa, OK and Albuquerque where his son – Tom and family lives.  Larry, his wife Sue, and their dog “Katie” had participated in our “Mesilla Valley Tour” to Southern New Mexico the previous week.

The weather was warmer that it’s been historically, with a reading in the low 60’s.  Temperatures at this event have traditionally been in the 30’s or 40’s before sunrise.  Sadly, the wind conditions were too high to allow any of the balloons to take off.  Perhaps as a result of this, the visitation of our Model T’s on display seemed higher than normal.

When it was time to leave, Betty Housholder found that she couldn’t start her 1921 Model T coupe.  Jeff Richards and Linda Riel had helped her to get it started the day before, and it was experiencing the hard starting problems again.  Attempts were made to both push start and jump start the car.   A multimeter indicated that the battery was sufficiently charged and applying 12 Volts directly to the starter didn’t have any effect.  Jeff determined that the starter Bendix was still engaged and wouldn’t retract.  After pushing the coupe around to position it for AAA pickup, Jeff tried the starter again.  This time the car came to life, no doubt because the starter Bendix was no longer stuck.  What a relief!  Kudos to Jeff and the other members who helped get the coupe running!

Thanks to Betty Housholder for organizing this annual event!